Version 8 of Engineering Notation

Updated 2006-12-14 16:28:39

A way to convert any arbitrary number to engineering notation [L1 ]

 # eng - return engineering notation of any given number in a 2 element list as {num eng_unit}
 # pico nano micro milli 1 kilo Mega Giga Tera
 # use: eng <num> <unit>   eg. eng 123.456E6 Hz
 # First - scan to check if n is a number, if not then just return with input given {n u}
 proc eng {n u} {
        if ![scan $n %g res] {return [list $n {} $u]}
        if [expr $n>=1E-12 && $n<1E-9] {list [expr $n*1E12] p$u} \
                elseif [expr $n>=1E-9 && $n<1E-6] {list [expr $n*1E9] n$u} \
                        elseif [expr $n>=1E-6 && $n<1E-3] {list [expr $n*1E6] u$u} \
                                elseif [expr $n>=1E-3 && $n<1] {list [expr $n*1E3] m$u} \
                                        elseif [expr $n>=1 && $n<1E3] {list [format %g $n] $u} \
                                                elseif [expr $n>=1E3 && $n<1E6] {list [expr $n/1E3] k$u} \
                                                        elseif [expr $n>=1E6 && $n<1E9] {list [expr $n/1E6] M$u} \
                                                                elseif [expr $n>=1E9 && $n<1E12] {list [expr $n/1E9] G$u} \
                                                                        elseif [expr $n>=1E12 && $n<1E15] {list [expr $n/1E12] T$u} \
                                                                                else {list [format %g $n] $u}
 }
 ### Example Output
 %eng 1.23456E-2 V
 12.3456 mV
 %eng 209357.209857E5 Hz
 20.9357209857 GHz
 %eng 0.012e-7 H
 1.2 nH

CvK (Dec 2006) - is there any way this could be simplified ?

MJ - Try the following (with the additional benefit that it is feasable to add more orders of magnitude):

proc eng {num u} {

        array set orders {
         -8 y -7 z -6 a -5 f -4 p -3 n -2 u -1 m 0 {} 1 k 2 M 3 G 4 T 5 P 6 E 7 Z 8 Y
        }
        set numInfo  [split [format %1e $num] e] 
        set order [expr {[scan [lindex $numInfo 1] %d] / 3}]
        set prefix $orders($order)
        set num [expr {$num/(10.**(3*$order))}]
        return "$num $prefix$u"

}